


Why Mahiru Is A Legend

by aishiterubanzais (ovijiaboardz)



Series: character analysis [2]
Category: Dangan Ronpa - All Media Types, Super Dangan Ronpa 2
Genre: Analysis, Character Analysis, Character Study, Other, Super Dangan Ronpa 2 Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-13
Updated: 2019-03-13
Packaged: 2019-10-29 22:36:07
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,357
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17816801
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ovijiaboardz/pseuds/aishiterubanzais
Summary: A (slightly biased) analysis on the ultimate photographer of sdr2





	Why Mahiru Is A Legend

Mahiru Koizumi, the ultimate photographer is one of my top favorites not only in sdr2, but in the franchise in general. 

I believe the reason she gets overlooked include:

A.) She gives off a bad first impression, so people immediately assume she’s a crazy sjw feminist which really isn’t the case (more on that later.) 

B.) People find her ‘plain’ and ‘boring’ since she’s not as quirky or eccentric as the other characters seem at a first glance. While this is refreshing for some, it’s a major turn off for others.

C.) She didn’t live very long, so people don’t have much time to get to know her as character, and she didn’t develop as far as she could’ve.

(There’s also people who dislike her due to hypocrisy, which I’ll touch on later.)

Alright, so let’s touch on her first impressions. The first free time event and just during general gameplay, Mahiru is noticeably more hostile, has higher expectations of, and grows more frustrated with the male characters. This isn’t because she’s a crazy sjw or ‘feminazi’ - it’s because the men who’ve had a strong influence on her life from early on, more specifically her dad. In her free time events, she speaks fondly about her mother who would go off to take war photos. Mahiru was portrayed to think very highly of her mother. However, her father was a different story. Whenever her mother left, he would lay around and watch tv, and Mahiru grew up doing all the work for him. It makes sense she’d make an assumption like this.

It’s pretty ironic, actually. She manages to prove an important point with all of this - don’t judge a book by its cover. At first, Mahiru was prejudiced against boys because of the behavior of her deadbeat dad. However, she slowly begins to realize that that’s not the case at all, considering the efforts she sees Hajime making. Therefore she slowly begins to act kinder towards the boys, acknowledging her mistake.

However, I admire this defiance. Rather than Mikan, for example, who embraced her mistreatment (though in her defense, she had it much worse,) Mahiru doesn’t embrace this. She fights against it, trying to help the others improve.

Her relationship with Hajime is a good example, here. She at first refers to him as unreliable, but she keeps talking to him, and opening up more than she expected.

Now, let’s touch on her mother a little. Her mother was an important influence on her, and Mahiru clearly looked up to her and wanted to be like her. Her mother was a war photographer, but she only showed Mahiru the photos of smiling people. I think it’s really sweet that Mahiru found her inspiration from her mother like this. All she wants is to capture the smiles around her, and highlight the good moments. They were in a killing game with motives that drive talented high school students to murder and all Mahiru Koizumi wanted was to make people smile. She even committed herself to taking photos of everyone daily (well, all the girls,) so they could treasure these moments. I personally just found this trait really endearing.

Despite being a glowing, talented photographer, Mahiru is insecure. She doubts her own skills and feels low for it. All she wants is to do her best, and be the best version of herself she can be. She’s like this with others, too. She can be very critical and even a little judgemental. She’s a sass queen and I love it. 

She also manages to be sassy without being a total asshole. She’s actually very sweet at heart. If you’re doing something she disagrees with, she’ll let you know. However, unlike others such as Saionji, Ouma or Iruma, she does this with good intentions. She just wants them to be more self dependable and not turn out like her dad. She wants everyone to embrace their potential and become the best version of themselves they can be. 

An example of this could be the time she called out Fuyuhiko in the first class trial, mocking how tough and independent he acted. It wasn’t an empty insult to put him down with malicious intent, but a call-out. 

Though it may not seem like it at first, Mahiru also tries to see the better in others herself. She’s even got some… questionable friendships, because she wants to help troubled people better themselves. I’ve got a few examples up my sleeve, so don’t go just yet.

Before I touch on those, however, I’m going to address something that I’ve seen people bring up before. It’s not seriously relevant to my argument, but I’m going to hit on it anyway. While she stands up for Hiyoko when people are mean to her, she doesn’t do the same for Mikan. There’s a few possibilities her - people probably get what Mikan’s trying to do, or it could simply be that she’s close with Hiyoko and not very close with Mikan.

Hiyoko Saionji was a bully, no doubt about it. She was an immature girl with a strong inferiority complex who took it out on other people. She was the kind of person who picked on people weaker than her to feel stronger. She was raised this way, if course, so it’s not a horrid or awful thing on her part. She was flat out cruel to Mikan, she gets pleasure out of crushing ants, must I say more? 

Yet, when someone calls her out on this, she becomes timid and fearful, and even starts crying claiming she’s being bullied. However, (if you’ve bothered to play her free time events) Hiyoko just needs validation. She’s always grown up to believe she’s the best, stepping on everyone below her. The ‘no one can touch me’ attitude is a defense mechanism. I would touch more on it, but that’d be for another time. Some people just have questionable ways of seeking attention. She’s in a big name clan that’s targeted by awful people. In fact, I’ll probably expand on her some more later, but this isn’t the place.

Then, let’s look at her relationship with Mahiru. She is very fond of Mahiru, clearly looking up to her. She refers to her as a big sister, and after Mahiru teaches her to untie her Kimono, the two are seen taking a bath together. It’s pretty easy to see that this is genuine. After Mahiru died, Hiyoko was devastated. She wailed on and on about how nice Mahiru was, and how someone like her didn’t deserve to die. From then on, she became stronger. She didn’t change over night, of course - she still tormented Mikan on a daily basis, but no matter how subtle, you could see she was making an effort to be nicer. She wanted to be someone Mahiru was proud of. It’s pretty clear that Mahiru left a lasting impact on her.

Another (slightly fainter) example of Mahiru leaving lasting impacts would be Peko Pekoyama. In Peko’s free time events, she talks to Hajime, about the conversations she had with Peko. She asked Peko why she rarely smiles, and offered to help her find her smile again. Mahiru’s first impression she left on Peko was something as simple as defending her when Teruteru made the thong comment, and later defending her in Twogami’s trial. With the efforts Peko made with Hajime, she seemed very happy to make Mahiru proud, which really was an impressive feat for someone who didn’t even see humanity in themselves. Sadly, the twilight syndrome murder case happened and it wasn’t enough to stop the tragedy of her death.

I really do feel like Mahiru had more potential in store and would’ve brought a lot to the table in the story. She was one of the most active participants in the first trial, and made some valid points. She also had a lot of room for character development, and it would’ve been nice to see how she reacted to certain events. In a perfect world, she could be a survivor and be more recognized in the fandom. Sadly, she’ll always be an underrated legend.


End file.
